


Take Me Home, Country Roads

by mxstyassasxin



Series: 24 for my 24th [17]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Australia, Gen, failed memory restoration, monica and wendell wilkins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:53:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24356134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mxstyassasxin/pseuds/mxstyassasxin
Summary: Work 17 of my 24th birthday drabbles. Inspired by Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver (although I listen to Peter Hollens' version).Hermione travels to Australia to restore her parents' memories, but she struggles when it doesn't go to plan.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Series: 24 for my 24th [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1736755
Kudos: 3





	Take Me Home, Country Roads

Hermione had finally heard back from Evan, the P.I she’d hired from a firm in Sydney, about the whereabouts of her parents. She had waited a few years before starting her attempts to find them, making sure that the aftermath of the war had calmed down enough for her to bring them back to London.

Initially, she’d contacted a company in Perth but, after six months of disappointments with them, they’d told her it was unfair to keep charging her for their time. They had given up on finding Monica and Wendell Wilkins, and she should too. But she was not giving up on her parents that easily, so emailed the Sydney firm after finding a positive review of their work from someone who had also been disappointed by the team in Perth.

Suddenly, five years after the war, she had been given a location and had booked the next available portkey out of London, arriving at the Australian Ministry in Melbourne in the dead of night, alone. Ron, after all was still terrified of spiders and, well, everyone knows that one thing about Australia. As for Harry, she couldn’t blame him for wanting to stay with his wife in the final trimester of their first pregnancy. Ginny herself had practically pushed Hermione into the floo when she went to apologise for skipping town without much notice.

From the Ministry, situated beneath Fitzroy Gardens, she’d wandered the city in the warm early morning, the coat she’d worn leaving a cool, springtime London slung over her arm. As businesses began to open their doors for the day, she had come across a car hire company, deciding to make use of her driver’s licence for once, rather than taking the train.

The information Evan had emailed to her informed Hermione that Monica and Wendell Wilkins lived in a northern suburb of Adelaide called Elizabeth. It was almost a nine-hour drive, navigating the web of roads that connected the small towns of Victoria before reaching the endless, straight highway that cut through the irrigated land of South Australia.

She had stared at the unassuming house from where she parked across the street, until the car clock read 18:20, hoping that her parents had kept their habitual dining hours despite the change in country. Knowing them, she hoped, they would have made enough food for leftovers and would be setting the table for dinner at 18:30. The sky was still blue and it was still warm, Adelaide receiving a full twelve hours of sunshine that time of year.

The reunion went exactly as Hermione had planned initially. They had opened the door, believed her story about being a long-lost relative following genealogical links to Australia, and invited her in for dinner. They chatted about London, British politics, the weather back home, and then the conversation had turned to family.

Hermione had researched how it was supposed to work, there was no way she’d attempt this without knowing how or whether there was any hope. Yet when, after dropping each piece of lost information, she wordlessly conducted the restorative spell with her wand under the table, nothing happened. She carried on with it all evening, but each attempt, no matter what fact about herself or their lives back home she used, failed to elicit a response, only serving to make herself more upset.

When Monica and Wendell began to drop hints about the late hour and contact details, Hermione made her way reluctantly to the front door and out to her car, only making it around the corner before she dissolved into tears.

After a while she set off again and just drove. Drove in a random direction beneath the unfamiliar stars of the southern sky, leaving the city and its suburbs behind, entering arid plains where the moonlight illuminated the dry, red soil passing by her windows, blurring with her tears and the speed of the car.

She had cranked the radio up on her way out of the city, the station she’d chosen earlier that day now playing a late-night mix of old rock and country music. The raw, emotional lyrics accompanied Hermione until her fuel light pinged on the dashboard, at which point she realised that she had no idea where she was, let alone where the nearest petrol station might be.

She pulled off the highway onto the red dirt, and banged her forehead on the steering wheel, music still blaring, almost too loud now in the silence of the night. A familiar song began playing, an American song about country roads and going home to where they belonged. Hermione wiped her eyes, shocked by the sudden fierce longing she had to feel her husband’s strong arms around her, to hear his voice trying to cheer her up, making her laugh, and bringing her some of Molly’s beef stew to make her feel better.

This endless driving and crying was not going to dislodge the feeling of painful failure and loss that had lodged itself within her chest. Only home could do that and all the comforts that she knew her friends and family would provide. They were her constants now and she loved them as they loved her.

Switching off the engine, she grabbed her belongings and stepped out of the car, breathing in the dry, night’s air as she pictured the lobby of the Australian Ministry in her mind’s eye, preparing to turn on the spot.

She would have to leave the car, but the Ministry could send someone to sort that. She was going home. 


End file.
